Problem definition

What is the problem?

While most innovation on traditional computers (desktop/laptop) has been happening on the Web over the past decade, most of the action on mobile devices (phones and tablets) is happening using native technologies.

Useful persons to reach out to

Analysis

Obviously, some aspects of the high level categories are intermixed (e.g. performance can be seen both as a problem for developers and for users); probably best is to look at them through the largest audience (in this case, users)

Strengths

Useful to assess whether there are advantages of the platform that we could use to increase its appeal compared to native, as well as to make sure we don't weaken them by trying to work around some of the weaknesses

no-install/no-update needed for hosted apps: less work for users, so opens up a variety of usage

hosted Web apps comes with a number of promises that users rely on (privacy, security)

hosted and packaged Web apps can be made to work on many platforms/devices with less development/maintenance cost

(what does the arrival of “dumb” connected devices change to this? how native will expand to other smart devices? which other smart devices are likely to matter in the same scale as mobile phones?)

Web apps are pretty much the only contender for cross-devices interactions

service/content provider is in control of whether and when a hosted Web app is published and updated

the Web technology roadmap is defined by a consensus-based process, not controlled by a single commercial entity

links make it easy to integrate content with other content, and to get the user to land on one's hosted Web app by following links

for platform providers that have less visibility among developers, Web techonologies are a great way to gather more mass/momentum

hosted Web apps have historically shown various ways to build long standing revenues for many companies (how does native compare?)

Web technologies are developed under royalty-free licensing, which gives important guarantees in the mobile space that is known for its large IPR battles

Weaknesses

Platform providers also control their mobile browser

many mobile devices can't use non-default browser; many users don't know or care about additional browsers

default browser is controled by platform providers who benefit from locked-in app stores

they aren't available widely enough for developers to rely on (CoreMob trying to fix that, but need a long term strategy to keep up)

the pace to which they're deployed doesn't match developers need — WGs priorities more often reflect local circumstances (e.g. who can edit, who can review, who can test) than what the outside world needs most urgently

they come with so many drawbacks (e.g. user prompts) to be unusable in practice?

Programming challenges

building nice UIs for mobile (existing work: competing CSS approaches for building UIs)

adapting UI to the various underlying platform (is it a goal?)

inconsistent APIs

interoperability (cf Testing efforts, CoreMob)

"write once works everywhere" only interesting if trying to work everywhere

offline capabilities (difficulties with AppCache, ongoing work in this space)

payment useful both for first access (aka download on native) and for additional features / virtual goods

payment harder (cf Payment headlight) than on native, in particular because there is no payment-provider lock-in (native app stores induces lock-in for users and developers);

tying payments (by default?) to operator billing could be part of the approach (but leaves open the question on how developers get funds from a myriad of operators); Firefox OS comes with navigator.mozPay() (bound to carrier billing?)

DRM currently not available on the Web makes it impossible to use it as a platform for DRM'd content

User Experience

“Consumers indicate that mobile apps provide quicker, direct access to the content they are seeking, while mobile browsing provides more flexibility to take multiple action paths, allowing for more "casual browsing". Mobile apps also allow users to see the content they want through a delivery mechanism built specifically for that content.” Mobile Internet Behaviors: Browser and App Preferences

performance and perception thereof (cf Performance headlight)

(hosted) Web apps are not integrated as "first class citizen" in the phone UIs, making it less easy to access for the user, less likely to access; the user cannot know whether (or realize that) a Web is available for offline usage

Discovery and User Awareness

“unless you are a large company, discovery is very important, so stores remain very important” (despite their costs)